Cantonese food was previously one of my favourite cuisines before having spent a long period of time in Taiwan. This isn’t to say that Taiwan’s Cantonese food scene is bad by any means, but my taste buds have changed, and I now often find Cantonese food largely too salty or too heavily flavoured. However, the food at Xinhua towards the top of Yongkang Street had got so many good reviews that I felt obliged to give it a shot. Was it worth it?
Table of Contents
From the outside, you’ll notice that Xinhua looks relatively bright and new (has it had a recent makeover?) but not particularly flash or characteristically Cantonese in any real way. It looks clean and inviting, but why do some restaurants really feel the need to put so many brightly coloured plastic bins of what I can only assume is waste outside the front of their restaurant? Korean Little Kitchen did the same, too, which doesn’t exactly make the whole atmosphere feel clean or inviting…
The menu at Xinhua
I like the layout of the menu here, and especially like the English and Chinese on the menu – double win!
Stir-fried instant noodles with beef and XO chilli sauce
I often get beef when I see it on a menu, as I get fed up with the huge amounts of pork consumed all over the island. This beef did not disappoint – it was juicy, chewy (yet not overly chewy), and had a great overall flavour. I really like stir-fried instant noodles and also really like XO sauce. So, you put all three things together and I am pretty much going to devour the whole plate/bowl.
XO sauce + Beef + Stir-fried noodles = Deliciousness
Fried rice with salted fish & chicken cube
I have never tried salted fish fried rice so I let my curiosity get the better of me here. Salted fish with chicken cubes? I didn’t quite know what to expect, so when it arrived and the rice looked really well stir-fried with flecks of cabbage, salted fish, and chicken in there, I was pleasantly surprised.
The salted fish was a bit too much for me by itself, but as a complete dish with all of the flavours together it works really well. The flecks of cabbage and the broccoli help to cut through the saltiness somewhat, and the rice was really good – it didn’t clump together like some fried-rice can do, so I was overall pretty satisfied with this.
Soup of the day
This soup is not on the menu but written on the specials board that you will find in most restaurants. $90 for a small bowl of soup seems pretty pricey. However, it’s cooked for a long period of time to develop the intensity of the pork and mushroom flavours. I am not a big fan of soup to be honest, but this one was pretty good, and if I am feeling in a soupy mood and here in the future, I would order it again.
Peanut butter and condensed milk toast
OK so peanut butter = GOOD. Condensed milk = GOOD. Toast = GOOD. But, if you put all 3 of those together and serve it as a dessert, is it really going to be that good?
Yes. Simple. It’s gooey, it’s rich, it’s sweet, it’s hugely calorific and I loved every moment of it. I will be back again for this. The crunchy-on-the-outside yet soft-on-the-inside toast encased the gooey peanut butter and sticky condensed milk so well that I feel like this is a match made in heaven.
The bottom line
Would I go again? Yeh, definitely. It’s reasonably priced, honest Cantonese food.
What was the must-eat dish? I’d say the beef stir-fried in XO sauce with instant noodles was top notch. The toast coming in a very close second.
What would I order next time? I’d probably go for the stir-fried instant noodles with spam & egg next time. I mean, spam? Hells yeh!
Are you a fan of Cantonese food? Check out here for more Cantonese restaurants in Taipei.